Exponent of Breath
by varietyofwords
Summary: Oneshot. Jay and Will plus a side of linstead. "This is Mom's ring." "Yep." "And you don't want to give this to Erin?"


**Author's Note:** This fic is set a few months into the future of where the show is currently at (I'm as vague in my timelines as the show's writers are) and is an exploration into Jay's relationship with his family with a small side of linstead.

* * *

 _Love is anterior to life, posterior to death, initial of creation, and the exponent of breath_. – Emily Dickinson

The whiskey goes down clean and smooth; the amber-colored liquid sloshing against the rim of the glass as he sets the glass tumbler back down on the wooden bar. He taps his fingers against the lacquered surface, raises them up to signal the bartender standing at the other end of the bar that he'd like another drink, and forces himself to smile as the brunette makes her way over to him. Forces his eyes to focus not on the jagged, pink scar running down the slope of her neck, but rather on the brightness in her eyes and wide smile her lips have been pulled into.

"You gonna leave me another hundred dollar tip this time?" The young woman asks with a laugh as she reaches from the bottle of whiskey under the counter. Her movement draws attention to the scar on her neck; her comment draws attention to the guilt currently twisting his stomach into a knot. And the smile immediately slides off his face as she pours three fingers worth of whisky into an empty glass.

"Maddie–"

"You know my hospital bills were all paid in full, right?" She questions interrupting the way his voice guiltily cracks over her name as she nudges the newly filled glass towards him. "Some guy with the police Citizens Review Board or something – I didn't catch his name – paid the hospital in cash. So I'm good, Jay."

His eyebrows immediately wrinkled in confusion because he's never heard of the CRB paying for a victim's medical Philips without a lengthy court process and a review with Internal Affairs, and he's certainly never heard of the city paying out in all cash. But Maddie's wide smile as she looks right past him draws Jay's attention from the scar on her neck and the guilt in his gut to one of the patrons seated behind him, to the man wearing dark blue scrubs nursing a beer as he sits alone and scrolls through the messages on his phone.

He recognizes the semi-familiar man was one of the trauma surgeons that Will works with over at Chicago Med, although the name escapes him, long before Maddie leans against the bar and makes the connection for him. Long before her voice drops low as she nudges the whiskey towards him one more time and informs him that trauma surgeons make way more than cops.

"And he's interested in more than just playing Scrabble when I invite him over so, really, I should be thanking you," Maddie adds with a laugh as Jay reaches for the near empty glass in front of him.

He knocks back the remaining half a finger of whisky, and the corner of his mouth pull into a tight smile as the burning liquid slides down his throat over the memory of them playing that board game at her place for over an hour before he clumsily used the buzz of his phone as an excuse to leave. Lost interest in what was probably a sure thing when her name, her picture, his one day flashed across the screen.

"So where's that–"

Her question dies on her lips at the chime off the bell above the door reaches their ears, and they both twist around to warily watch the two men stepping into largely uncrowded bar. Hands jammed into the pocket of his sweatshirts with the word 'Bears' emblazoned across the front, the first man to walk to the bar immediately heads towards the cluster of men wearing blue and orange gathered around the television screen mounted in the corner of the bar. The second hesitates in the doorway – eyes carefully sliding around the small bar and lingering long enough to notice his colleague slumped in the corner and his brother seated at the bar – and only steps in when his brother gestures with the jerk of his head for Will to join him.

"Can we get a couple of beers?" Jay asks as he turns on his barstool to look at Maddie, as he jams his hand into the right pocket of his black hoodie before he remembers. Before the soft stroke of velvet against the tips of his fingers causes him to jerk his hand back, to slip his left hand into the pocket of his coat in search of his wallet.

"Sure thing," Maddie replies pushing away from the counter and heading towards the taps situated in the middle of the bar as Will slides onto the barstool next to him. Without greeting or hesitation, Will reaches for the untouched glass of whiskey in front of Jay knocking it back with such impressive force that Jay ends up pausing shuffle through to Philips in his wallet to stare at his older brother.

"Bad day?"

"Yep," Will replies as he calmly sets the now empty glass back down on the bar in front of his brother. His voice drops low, becomes a garbled mess as he mumbles something about it only getting worse. But the window of opportunity for Jay to question his brother closes when Maddie returns, when two frothy beers are placed in front of the Halstead brothers. And Jay immediately frowns shaking his head side to side in disbelief as Will sits up a little straighter and starts to introduce himself.

"You didn't mention you had a brother when we played Scrabble, Jay," Maddie says with a teasing grin as Jay slides a couple of twenties across the bar towards her. She takes two off the top of the stack sliding the other two back across the lacquered surface so they sit beside his beer in front of him. "It's twenty-nine plus tip. Unless you want me to start a tab for you and your brother?"

"A tab would be great," Will interrupts pulling his gold American Express card from his wallet and plopping in on the bar. Maddie snatches the credit card off the counter with a smile and heads down to the other end of the bar to deal with the Bears fans watching the television with avid interest.

At the nudge of his brother's elbow and his assurance that he'll get the next round, Jay picks up the two twenties now damp from resting on the bar top in the small droplets of alcohol that has spilled over the course of the five hours the bar has been opened and tucks them back into his wallet. He nearly slips the wallet back into his right pocket before he catches himself, and only after the wallet is safely returned to his empty left pocket does Jay grab the beer in front of him and gesture with a nod of his head for Will to follow him.

"Scrabble, huh? Is that some kind of euphemism?" Will questions as he takes the barstool opposite the door at the empty high-top table in the corner that Jay's picked out. "And was the before or after Erin?"

"Before," Jay answers taking a sip of his beer. "And we played Scrabble as in the actual board game at her apartment. Once."

"Uh huh," Will replies with a suspicious glance over his brother's shoulder at the brunette working the bar. "She's hot. Got the whole scar thing going on."

He pauses racking his eyes up and down Maddie's side profile before frowning, before shaking his head side and to side and offering his brother a disapproving look. Jay, whose smile has dimmed over the mention of Maddie's scar, swallows back another swig of beer and questions his brother's disapproval with a pointed look.

"What?"

"I can understand why you only played Scrabble with her once," Will replies as he lifts the beer to his lips and tries to bury his next few words in a gulp of the cold, frothy beverage, "seeing as you're still holding a torch for that desk sergeant over at the district."

"Yeah, I'm just biding my time with Erin until Platt's ready to get off the backburner," Jay replies in a voice dripping with sarcasm before taking a long gulp from the beer in front of him, and Will chuckles against the rim of the beer glass pressed against his lips. His gaze lazily slides over his brother's shoulder towards the door only to be pulled back when Jay stands up and moves to the barstool to Will's right.

"I don't like my back to the door," Jay explains with a shrug of his shoulders before taking another drink, and Will lets the shift slide without question. Merely reaches for his drink and pretends not to notice the uneasy way Jay keeps glancing at the door out of the corner of his eye as he questions why Jay wanted to meet here instead of at Molly's.

There's a slight hesitation on Jay's part as he sets his glass down on the tabletop, as he slides his right hand into the pocket of his leather coat. His fingers sort of fumble against the soft velvet of the box; his hand uncharacteristically clammy and damp with anxiety. And he steadfastly refuses to meet his brother's questioning gaze as he slowly extracts the box from his pocket and places it on the table.

"I pretty sure what you're about to ask me is still illegal in all fifty states," Will jokes after a long pause, and Jay rolls his eyes letting out a small snort in response to his brother's attempt at breaking the ice. There's another long pause where the black, velvet box sits in front of them untouched as they both take swigs of their beers. Where Jay hides the dampness of his palm by pressing it up against the perspiring glass and Will hides his disapproval by focusing his gaze on the mounted television screen in the corner.

"So," Will starts slowly drawing out each syllable as the cheers over the Bears' latest touchdown dies down, "you're gonna propose to Lindsay just like that?"

The snap of Will's fingers snaps Jay's attention from the screen to the box on the table to the worried expression on Will's face, and he frowns immediately at the sight because he doesn't like the suggestion that he and Erin are moving too fast. They waited nearly two years for their one day, cooled it for a few months when it wasn't right for her, and then spent a couple more weeks dancing around a "maybe" even after he promised Voight an "always" because the priority was her and her job and her health. All he – _they_ – have ever done is wait.

"Ring's not for her," Jay coolly informs his brother before taking a long drink of his beer. He nearly chokes on the rapidly warming liquid at his brother's joking words about how Platt's got him all messed up, but forces himself to swallow back the liquid at sound of the warning chime of the door being opened.

His eyes dart quickly to his right, and his gaze relaxes as another man in a Bears t-shirt walks into the bar and immediately joins his friends in the corner. Maddie seems to recognize the guy; immediately pouring him a beer and handing it to him with a wink before she goes back to talk to the guy in the dark blue scrubs, who has since taken over the barstool Jay vacated.

"This is Mom's ring."

The harsh and judgmental yet soft and emotional tone of Will's voice as he states a fact that Jay already knows pulls the younger Halstead's gaze away from the bar, away from the pink line running down Maddie's neck to focus on his brother and the opened box in Will's hand.

"Yep," Jay confirms as Will tips the box in which the ring is nestled side to side so the diamond shimmers pink in neon glow of the bar lights. He repeats the single syllable word when Will reminds him that Mom left her engagement ring to the younger Halstead because Jay was there when she handed it to him in the hospital, there when the lawyers informed Will and their father that Helen Halstead had been one hundred percent clear about her engagement ring going to Jay.

"And you don't want to give this to Erin?" Will inquires as he sets the open box down on the table so the ring faces Jay, so the younger Halstead's attention is drawn to the silver band and the small diamond. The ring isn't flashy or gaudy – nothing like the ring their father gave their mother for their twentieth wedding anniversary when being a cardiothoracic surgeon started to pay off that Will inherited – but, despite its simplicity, it's likely nicer than anything Jay could afford to buy.

"Nope," Jay replies in a tone that makes it obvious how resolute he is on this, and he proceeds to polish off the last of his beer as Will flicks his gaze from Jay's face to the ring on the table. He opens his mouth to say something, to remind Jay once again that their mother want him to have this ring, but the start of his words are cut off by the chime of the door opening once more.

The glass is still pressed to Jay's lips as he turns his head to look at the door, and it catches the warm liquid that sputters from his mouth as his features fall and pull and twist in the fury of anger at the sight of the older man standing in the doorway. The gray hair at his temples and atop his head puts the man about thirty years above the average age of the bar's patrons; the freshly pressed, gray suit and starched, white shirt underneath puts him about three income brackets above those milling about the bar.

Droplets of beer fall from the rim of the glass onto Jay's hoodie as he slams the glass back onto the table, as he turns to glare at his older brother. His suspicions are confirmed by the way Will reaches out to snag his arm, to hold him down as he waves for the newest patron to join them.

"Don't," Jay replies tearing his arm out of his brother's grip with only minimal force and moving rapidly to his feet. The barstool underneath him wobbles, scrapes against the hardwood floor as it is forcefully pushed backwards by Jay's quick movements, and the commotion draws the apprehensive attention of Maddie from behind the bar.

"Jay," father and brother call after him, but Jay shrugs past both of them and their outstretched hands as he storms out of the bar. The satisfying sound of the door slamming behind him is lost amidst the howling air as it nips at his extremities, and Jay immediately jams his hands into the pockets of his hoodie. Left fingers brush against the leather of his wallet; right fingers brush against the liner of the coat pocket.

No ring box. No key ring.

His boots stop crunching against the sidewalk as Jay halts, as he slips his right hand into the pocket of his jeans hoping that he'll find his keys but knowing full well from the way the metal didn't dig into him as he sat on the barstool that he's left them behind in the bar. He thinks briefly about pulling out the cellphone in his back pocket and calling Erin or ordering an Uber when he feels the touch of a hand on his arm.

Immediately on defense, Jay whirls around to find his brother standing before him with Jay's keys held in his outstretched hand. Immediately suspicious, Jay isn't at all surprised when he reaches out to grab the keys only for Will to close his hand around them in a game of keep away just like when they were kids.

"I'll give them back just as soon as you sit down and talk to him," Will informs his younger brother as he steps backwards, as he tries to keep Jay from ripping the keys out of his hand.

"We've said everything that needs to be said," Jay coolly reminds him. His eyes dart swiftly from left to right watching Will shuffle around the keys in his hands, and he's so focused on planning his calculated attack that he nearly misses the way their father sneaks up on the side. Nearly because he takes a step backwards away from father and son before his father can reach them; nearly because he throws father and son a look of absolute disgust when he notices the ring box in his father's outstretched hand.

"You forgot this, too," Philip Halstead says offering the ring back to his youngest son.

"It's Will's now," Jay replies sharply lifting his harsh gaze upward to stare directly into the blue eyes he inherited. The confusion that settles across his father's face and the way the older man mumbles something about Helen wanting Jay to give her ring to the girl he loves causes Jay to scoff and narrow his features into an even harsher glare.

"I'm not giving my girl something that was a lie," he snaps, and he feels the sting of satisfaction as his father's posture crumbles slightly at his words. As Philip Halstead takes a step backwards while Jay advances forward; as his eldest son steps in between the two of them to interfere. "Cause that's all it was, wasn't it, Dad? A twenty-three year long lie?"

"Your girl?" Philip Halstead echoes ignoring the jab of Jay's words as he glances from his youngest son's face to the black, velvet-covered box in his hand and, finally, back to his eldest son's face. "You didn't tell me that things were this serious between him and Erica."

"Erin," Jay forces out through gritted teeth as Will presses his hand against his chest pushing him backwards and communicating to Jay that he needs to calm down without words. His brother's efforts are futile serving only to shift Jay's menacing glare from father to eldest son as the realization that Will's been telling their father about Erin hits, and Jay steps closer still to his brother as he gets right up into his face and says, "I don't want you talking about her or me to him."

"You were in the hospital, Jay. I had to tell him something," Will testily reminds his brother before letting out a sigh of exasperation; before his shoulders slump and he meets Jay's menacing stare with an unyielding gaze of his own. "You two haven't talked in three fucking years. Whatever happened–"

"Mom was dying, and he had a girlfriend," Jay interrupts with the shake of his head rejecting the rather nonchalant way Will uses 'whatever' to refer to what happened between Jay and their father. "She died thinking he loved her, thinking that ring meant something."

"Jay, I did–"

"Don't," Jay snaps refusing to allow his father to continue to peddle bullshit about how he loved his wife. It had been hard enough to learn his father was remarrying less than five years after Helen Halstead's death; harder still to stand in the living room of his childhood home amidst the partygoers at Philip and Susan's engagement party and learn from the future Mrs. Halstead's sister that she wasn't at all surprised about the engagement because Susan and Philip had been dating for going on six years, after all..

The information – confirmed by his father's refusal to meet his gaze – was the final wedge into their already fractured relationship, and all the years of eating his father's criticisms, of hearing about how being a soldier and then a cop wasn't good enough for a Halstead without reply or reaction on Jay's part simply for his mother's sake had been channeled into that solid punch to his father's face and a few choice words. A single punch that Will hadn't been around to stop and that Jay still doesn't regret to this day.

"I'm leaving," Jay informs his brother shifting his heated gaze from his father to his brother and fighting the urge to curl his fingers into another fist. "Either give me my keys or–"

"Give them to him, Will," their father interrupts and Will sputters for a moment hesitating until their father nods his head at his eldest child in affirmation that he means what he says. The keys are dropped into Jay's hand, and he immediately curls his fingers around them turning away from father and son before either of them can push the ring box into his hand.

Neither one of them attempts to stop Jay makes his way to his car, as he unlocks the door and slides into the driver's seat. He takes a moment to pull the iPhone out of his back pocket and quickly type out a message to Erin asking if she's home; eyes drifting after every other word to watch Will and their father talking animatedly on the sidewalk outside the bar. Barely a minute passes before his phone buzzes against his thigh with Erin's two word reply – _come over_ – and he breathes out a sigh of relief as he throws the gearstick into reverse.

His brother and father both turn to watch him drive past, but he pays them little mind as he stops the car briefly at the light and then makes a right turn towards Erin's place. His place is closer – this is his local bar, after all – and Antonio's boxing gym is halfway in between – probably the better place to blow off some steam – but in many ways – the ambush, the foreboding dread, the pain – he feels as though he's taken a bullet tonight and now needs to see her.

Swift moving traffic, the open parking spot in front of her building, and a functioning elevator all cut down on the amount of time he has to stew over what happened tonight, on the amount of time he spends separated from her. Jay raps his knuckles against the white door marked as 310 once, twice, three times before the door is opened, and Erin barely opens the door wide enough for him to slip into her apartment before his arm is curling around her waist.

His fingers skim against the hem of her black tank top as they come to rest against the small of her back; her lips press against hers as his body moves flush up against hers and they both sidestep around the open door into the apartment. The door shuts behind them at the push of her left hand, and the press of their lips, the touch of their tongues, and the slide of their hands against each other clothes becomes more urgent as Erin is backed up into the wall. Jay's fingers curl around the hem of her tank top yanking and pulling it upward to expose the toned skin of her stomach; Erin's fingers curl around the hairs at the base of Jay's neck yanking and pulling as he moves to press his lips against her throat.

"I thought I wouldn't see you until later," she mumbles. Her voice becomes more gravely with every syllable, and his mumbled reply is lost as she tips her head backwards to allow him greater access to her neck, to the tender spot just next to her collarbone. Her skin becomes flushed as his fingers brush against it, as he breaks his kiss against her neck in order to pull the tank top over her head. "Did Will not–"

"I don't want to talk about my brother," Jay mumbles as he drops the tank top onto the hardwood floor. His hands return to her neck, to her side, to her back as he moves to kiss her one more time, to lose himself in the feeling of her. But her eyes meet his and then her hands stop trying to tug on his hoodie, stop skimming against the bare skin underneath his t-shirt as she moves to press her palm against his chest. Pushes him away and holds him at arm's length just like Will did earlier tonight.

"What happened?"

The look on her face and, especially, the look of concern in her eyes make it clear that telling her he doesn't want to talk at all isn't going to cut it tonight. That what they said a couple of weeks ago about this only working if they tell each other everything – good, bad, and illegal – still holds true tonight.

Jay lets out a shaky sigh as he lowers his gaze and watches his fingers skim against the skin just above the waistband of her jeans, as he tries to figure out how to tell her about what happened without mentioning the ring cause his girl's got a nasty case of commitment phobia and she'll be out that door in a second. Shirt or no shirt. And after a long pause, the fingers skimming against her skin are stopped by the curl of her fingers around his wrist; by the way she tugs him out of the foyer of her apartment and into the living room.

Practically pushed down to his knees, Jay takes a seat on the arm of her new couch as Erin moves to stand between his parted legs. Her grip on his wrist relaxes as his hands return to her hips, and she slides her hand right hand up the length of his arm to touch his chin.

"What happened?" She questions again running her thumb against the line of his jaw, and he tilts his head backwards in order to look up at her. To see those beautiful, judgement-free eyes stare back at him patiently waiting for an answer.

"I haven't talked to my dad in almost three years," he informs her trying to remember if he's made this fact known to her. So many of their conversations over the past few months have centered on Bunny and her childhood and what he went through with Mouse that his brother offhandedly mentioned that he's not sure she's ever caught on to the fact that Philip and Jay Halstead don't talk.

"I figured," she replies as she folds her arms across her chest – the lace of her bra peeking out underneath – to ward off the settling chill and she shrugs at the noticeable confusion written across his face. "You said he lives in Chicago, but you never mention him."

"Yeah, well, Will invited him to join us tonight. Ambush attack," Jay states leading to a flicker of anger followed by a flicker of understanding in Erin's eyes as she reaches down to squeeze his hand in support because she gets it. Has been the victim of Bunny's ambushed attacks far too many times not to understand.

"You didn't punch him, did you?" She questions as his gaze drifts downward, as he curls his fingers around hers so they're interlaced with rather than cupped by hers.

"Not this time," Jay says with short bark of laughter. There's a short pause where she runs her thumb against the side of his forefinger, where she waits for him to loop his gaze back up to hers. The steely blue eyes that finally meet hers are open and honest yet firm and harsh; a contradiction of emotion that Erin has seen a few times before when they decided to let each other in. "I wouldn't do what he did to my mom to you, Erin."

The promise causes her forehead to wrinkle in confusion and her interlaced fingers to still in their soft, slow movements against his, but she waits for him to elaborate, waits for him to feel comfortable sharing this with her because that's their other rule: they tell each other the absolute, honest truth no matter how awful and give each other the space to share it at will and only when ready.

"My mom was dying," Jay eventually elaborates as his posture slumps and the anger begins to twist into something else that he's not ready to confront. "She was in that hospital alone because I was fighting a war and Will was out partying and my dad – my dad was off with his fucking girlfriend."

His name falls off her lips as a whisper, and he responds in an almost frantic manner as he curls his left hand around her jean-clad hip and lifts his gaze up to look straight in her eyes. And her own free hand moves to cup his cheek, to press her palm against his skin just like he did for her when she panicked all those months ago.

"I wouldn't do that to you. No matter what this is or where it goes, I wouldn't treat you that way," Jay solemnly promises. And then because he's Jay, because he loves to see her dimple concave as she breaks out into a smile, he forces himself to smile at her as he squeezes her hip and adds, "And not just because you almost came close to winning that C-note during our last requal."

"That was a draw, and you know it," Erin interjects with a smile, and then she steps a little bit closer to him twisting her hand so her thumb and her forefinger are pressed against the sides of his jaw before leaning down and ghosting her lips against his. The hand against her hip moves to curl around her waist in response, to pull her down with him as he falls off the arm and onto the couch.

The new cushions soften his short fall downward; Erin being forced to contend with the hard plane of his abs and a couple of feathery kisses in consolation as she laughs. Kisses that swallow up her mumbled words about how she knows he's different and knows without a doubt that he wouldn't do that to her because he cares about her and he's got her back; kisses that are stopped by him tearing his lips away and pressing them against her ear in order to breathe out in a whisper the length of time that defines them. That will not be interrupted by what this is or where it goes or if he ever gets to buy her an engagement ring.

"Always."


End file.
